For a moment it seemed as if he would rise and try to strike Mannion, but it was fleeting. Instead he sat back in his seat, gazing bleakly at Gresham.
'I came here because I was told there was a man who had something I would be interested in. Is that something merely a pack of insults?' He almost succeeded in hiding his fear.
'It's simple’ said Gresham. 'King Philip's great fleet is short of cannon and shot Far too many of its vessels are armed either with ancient iron guns, or cannon designed to cut a swathe through cohorts of men, not to cut through the thick and seasoned wood of an English galleon. Too many of its ships have a mere five or ten rounds per gun.'
'This I know’ said Bartolome, simply. 'This all Lisbon knows.'
'And you also know that it wasn't until last month that your foundry obtained enough raw materials to start seriously the business of casting new brass cannon, the large cannon the Armada so desperately needs, and the shot to go with them. And that Spain is relying on Lisbon to provide a hundred new, large guns, a hundred and fifty even, and the attendant shot.'
Bartolome spluttered, falling into the caricature he had previously adopted with Santa Cruz's harassed emissaries.
'A hundred cannon! A hundred and fifty! It is nonsense! The God of war himself could not make so many guns in so little time…'
'Spare me the drama’ said Gresham calmly. 'There are master gun-makers in France and craftsmen in Scotland who could come here to Lisbon for a price, men of experience and expertise, Catholic men with no love for England. Not only gun-makers, but the underlings, those other men who're so important in seeing that the mix of the metal is correct, that it cools at the right speed, that the bore is true… they too are there in Europe and in Scotland. But you've not sought to gain the services of these men.'
'And why should I not do so?' blustered Bartolome. 'I have all sorts of men tormenting me every day to produce more guns. More guns! It is like a litany of hell in my ears! Do you not think I would stop at anything to reduce it?'
'Yes’ said Gresham, 'for two reasons. Firstly, every master gun-maker brought here to Lisbon means less profit for you, who wish to have a monopoly in this most profitable of ventures. Secondly, you're not actually a very good master-gunner.'
Bartolome bridled, tried to rise to his feet. A pressure akin to an earthquake pressed on his shoulder. It was Mannion. He sat down.
Your record wherever you have worked is bad. Explosions in the casting, explosions in the test-firing, explosions in the guns you've made when fired in earnest. In Italy they called you the widow-maker. You fled to Lisbon, telling them here that you sought more responsibility, and wished to make guns that would fire God's word as well as shot! Fine words, and fine forged testimonials from men in Italy with long titles but who unfortunately don't exist.'
'This is untrue! I…'
'Be silent.' Gresham had not raised his voice. The threat in its quiet tone silenced the Italian. 'My requirements are simple. You'll carry on making bad guns for the Spanish fleet. Instead of a hundred and fifty, you'll make no more than fifty, and they'll prove at sea to be more of a threat to the men who fire them than they are to the enemy they are fired at. And the round shot you manufacture, it'll be flawed. You'll ensure that it's cooled too quickly, unevenly, so that each shot will contain flaws. Flaws that mean when it's fired it'll fragment into splinters as soon as it leaves the barrel, and not smash whole into the hull of a good English ship.'
Anna found that she had been holding her breath, for how long she could not guess. She had been to sea, could imagine the Spanish soldiers and sailors putting the linstock to the priming pan of their great cannon, could hear the screams as cut and fragmented men saw their cumbersome weapon blow up in front of them, see the incomprehension on the faces of the men as round after round seemed to have no effect on the weaving, dancing English ships. What futures, what horrors and what lives were being decided here in this filthy room? What a reckoning there was here. Was it Death who had become her guardian?
'And my reward? My reward for betraying my faith as well as my profession? My reward for facing persecution, for being reviled, perhaps even for being exposed?'
'Gold,' said Gresham flatly. 'Exactly five times what you have there in that purse. Not quite a King's ransom, but perhaps a Duke's at least. A passport for you to a life of ease. And the good burghers of Lisbon not realising that their sudden dose of the pox comes as a present from you, of course, nor your wife hearing the good news. And, of course, the King of Spain not being given the truth about the skills of his master gun-maker in Lisbon. I think you'll do rather well out of it. Better than the soldiers and sailors you'll cause to be cut to ribbons by their own guns.'
They were clearly not an issue for the Italian. 'And what guarantee do I have that you will not betray me when you have used me? You come, Englishman, with a remarkably high profile to Lisbon. Carrying a beautiful girl, so they say in the wine shops, a Spanish Princess. Am I wise to place my life in the hands of a man so much in the public gaze?'
'Meet my ward,' said Gresham, reaching over and flipping back Anna's hood.
She was surprised to be revealed. She had had no warning. Her golden curls fell down as the gold had fallen on the table earlier, and in the face of her beauty it was as if the number of candles in the room had been quadrupled.
Gresham let him look at her for a suitable time. 'She's a whore,' he said flatly. 'A Spanish whore, and a very beautiful one, but a whore for all that. She was servicing the Captain of the San Felipe when we captured it. I knew then that she was my passport to Lisbon.'
Gresham let the Italian's eyes devour Anna. She was shivering, her eyes downcast. She had never felt so shocked. It was as if she had been stripped naked and paraded before this evil man, like a slave. In the face of the raw power exercised by Gresham, any words she might call up seemed pathetic trivia.
'And she's yours, when all this is over, if you want her,' said Gresham. 'Another part of your payment.'
'Mine?' said the Italian. 'How can that be? She knows I'm poxed. Soon no girl will sleep with me, unless they too are diseased.'
His face wrinkled in distaste. Not at the thought of a diseased girl lying with him, Gresham knew, but at the thought of the treatments he would have to undergo to see if he could be cured. They were all painful and one, Gresham knew, required the surgical use of an instrument rather like a corkscrew.
'She knows nothing,' said Gresham. 'She speaks only Spanish and a little English. She's mine to dispose of as I please. Do this job for me and she's yours.'
It was probably the gold that did it, Gresham knew, not the offer of the girl, though he wondered. His fear had been that the man would turn them in to the authorities after the first purse, reckoning this to be the lesser of two evils. He had needed a distraction, something to stop Bartolome using his brain. What better way to stop him using his brain than making him think with his groin? The man had a voracious sexual appetite, that they knew. Yet no women, not even the whores, would look at him if it was known he had the pox. He could not keep his pox secret for long. Soon he would either have to be chaste, or spread his thinning seed between the thin legs of the women who were already poxed, a despairing pathetic group in any seaport or city whose closest relations in history were the members of a leper colony. To have his own whore, and one of such beauty, while he tried to fight free of the French malaise, now there was something even money would not buy him. And, if he chose to tell Anna what he had offered, it would bring her in touch with the reality of spying. And it would stop him thinking. The hot hunger for sex would override his brain, stop him from taking the money and betraying Gresham.
'How will… how will you get the girl to me?' Bartolome asked.
'We've spies everywhere in Lisbon,' said Gresham. Well, Walsingham did. 'I'll hear how the work in the Foundry goes. In Spring, if those reports are what I wish to hear, I'll return with the remainder of your money. And with the girl. She's clean from disease. I'll ensure she remains so. Until I deliver her to you, that is.'
He left then, confused and elated, frightened yet reassured. Under his management Gresham doubted that the cannon and shot produced from the Lisbon armoury would have been of the highest quality. Now he felt certain of it.
'What were you saying to the Italian?' asked a nonplussed George, who despite all the attempts of his tutors spoke only English.
'How dare you,' said Anna, cutting in. Her voice was cold, the authority of her mother suddenly appearing on
